


All Over

by Deannie



Series: The Shirt Series [2]
Category: Star Trek: Alternate Original Series (Movies)
Genre: Community: hc_bingo, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-27
Updated: 2016-11-27
Packaged: 2018-09-02 08:07:58
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,184
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8659255
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Deannie/pseuds/Deannie
Summary: Leonard took an unsteady breath. Just had to finish one thing and it could all be over. He wrapped his hands around Jim Kirk’s throat, and with all his strength, tried to strangle the life out of him.





	

**Author's Note:**

> hc_bingo prompts: strapped to a moving vehicle and brainwashing/deprogramming

The isolation room was silent, the lights dimmed in the ship’s night cycle. He lay silently, staring at the ceiling, and ignored the pain in his hands. Hands he’d used to—

_The medical stand whirled hard in the air, and the impact of it against Jim’s chest was sickening. Jim’s eyes opened wide, his mouth working silently for a second before he fell to the floor._

Leonard McCoy put those hands to his head and shook.

_"Inform Commander Spock immediately. Captain Kirk is..."_

God, what had he done?

*********

**Three days earlier…**

The dark and the heat were oppressive, but he waited. He waited because he knew Jim Kirk would come. Jim would find him—or Spock or someone else on the ship that couldn’t be conquered (and where had he heard that?)—and it would all be over… Someday.

So when the hell was _someday_ going to get here? It had already been long enough that he was starving—starving by clinical definition, not just a little hungry. The last time he could remember eating had been that cafe on Hilotti Epsilon, however many days ago. Which had been right before he’d been cracked in the skull and…

He wasn’t sure what had happened in the interim, but he tried not to think about it. He’d been through the cell a hundred times, looking for anything he could use, but all he’d found were walls and a floor. And he was damn tired of that cold dirt floor. Hell, there wasn’t even a window to get some idea of days and nights on this planet.

Anyway, wherever here was. It didn’t matter, ultimately. Because Jim would be here.

Any minute now….

 

Any minute turned out to be a long, _long_ time in coming. When the door to his cell finally ground open, he wasn’t sure if he was going to be able to move.

“Bones?” Jim was there, close—too close—looking worried. “Jesus, come on. Let’s get you out of here.”

Finally, _someday_ was here. About God damned time, too. Jim and someone else levered him to his feet, and Leonard took an unsteady breath. Just had to finish one thing and it could all be over. Knowing that, he reached out and pushed Jim off-kilter, dislodging the other person’s hold and landing on top of his friend as they crashed to the ground. He wrapped his hands around Jim Kirk’s throat, and with all his strength, tried to strangle the life out of him.

“Dr. McCoy!” He heard Sulu. He did. “Dr. McCoy, let him go!” Jim’s face was turning red and he didn’t fight—much. Somehow, Leonard had known he wouldn’t. Didn’t want to hurt his best friend…

Leonard’s grip loosened the tiniest bit as he hesitated. No, he thought. He didn’t want to—

And then a blast of light and pain hit him and he was somewhere else.

 

“I still don’t get what happened.” Sulu was clearly shaken.

Leonard was moving very fast and it was making him nauseated. He opened his eyes to see the ceiling of a corridor on the Enterprise, rolling by rapidly. A gurney, then. He flexed his arms, but he was held tight in restraints.

“I’m not sure he even knew it was us, Sulu.”

Leonard pulled at the straps with more intent, hearing that voice he’d been waiting for. He had to get to Jim. He had to.

“I think he knew it was you, sir,” Sulu disagreed. “He just…”

“No. He blinked there, for a second—like he _almost_ knew me.” Jim again. His voice sounded raw from the pressure of Leonard’s hands around his neck. He hadn’t squeezed hard enough. “And then he went insane.”

God damn it, why wouldn’t they let him get to Jim!? It would all be over if they’d just—

“The sedative is already wearing off, Doctor,” Nurse Meyers said. Her face came into view and then out again, replaced by another.

“That’s impossible,” Hillerton replied, his too-blue eyes boring into Leonard’s, though he talked like he wasn’t even there. “Between Sulu stunning him and the sedative we administered on the planet, he should be comatose.”

Well, he wasn’t. “Get these damn restraints off me,” he growled. _He_ was the head of _Enterprise_ ’s medical team, after all, wasn’t he?

“Hey, Bones,” Jim said, suddenly there again and hovering over him, too close and too far away and why the _hell_ was he in restraints, anyway? “We’re going to figure it out, okay? I promise.”

 _I promise._ Leonard had a glimpse of a dark room, a painful heat too close to his skull. Too far inside it. _Kill him and it will all be over._

No, that was insane. He wouldn't—

A blast of light and pain hit him and he was somewhere else.

 

“It wasn’t drug induced." Jittn’ah’a's words woke him from a sound sleep. “His toxicology is clean.”

 _But they could have used another means,_ Leonard thought idly. _Hell of a lot of ways to brainw—_ his mind shied away from the thought, afraid of the light and pain that kept leaping him forward in time. He kept his eyes closed and listened, feeling the absent bite of a full body web holding him down now. His right hand ached and he felt heavy. Sluggish.

“The only thing we can do is let him come around fully and figure out how deep the programming goes.”

Programming. Huh. Well, if anyone could do that, it would be Jittn’ah’a. The Nayaleva were an empathic species, not quite mind-readers. Those abilities made Jitt a natural as a pan-species psychiatrist, but his training was what made him a good one.

“Are you certain that is the wisest course of action?” Spock asked, concerned and hiding it. “Given his repeated episodes of violence, perhaps sedation is—”

_Repeated bouts of violence? Fantastic._

“Combined with those episodes, the amount of sedation we’ve had to give him each time is going to kill him at some point, sir,” Jitt said quietly. He didn’t mention _why_ sedation would eventually be deadly, which Leonard appreciated. His medical history was his, wasn’t it?

He did wonder how much he’d been given, though, and whether he was due for another dose.

“And clearly it isn’t doing its job. He should have been unconscious on the run to medbay and he still managed to snap a restraint and…”

_And what?_

“I just don’t think continuing to sedate him is going to do any good. I think figuring out what the _mikota_ they did to him _will._ ”

_The room had been hot and close and dark and GOD that hurt and—_

_“It will all be over.”_

Leonard’s mind skittered away again. He was tired. So damn tired. The whole idea of this was just ludicrous, but somehow, he knew what was going on. He was pretty sure it wouldn’t stop him from going after Jim if he saw him, though, and that just served to make him sick.

“Keep me informed, Doctor,” Spock said quietly. “I believe, for the time being, it is prudent to keep Captain Kirk and Doctor McCoy separated. For both their safety.”

Leonard held in a laugh at that. His safety. He didn’t need saving. And saving Jim wouldn’t stop anything. If they’d just let him… His mind tried to object to the precise phrase. If they’d just let him _get to him,_  this would all be over.

No. Damn it. He wouldn’t—just the thought made his head hurt and he bailed out before finishing it.

He slept then, without meaning to. _Probably a mental safety valve,_ he thought as he woke. _To keep from thinking about—_ He cut himself off brutally and took a breath. He wasn’t trussed up anymore. He was lying on a bed in one of the isolation rooms. Hopefully under guard. He sat up carefully, his throat aching and his limbs shaky from lack of food and too much sedation.

The safety alarm went off outside the door, designed to alert the doctors that the patient within was moving, in case he or she was a fall risk. Wouldn’t be long now before someone came to check on him. God, he was hungry!

“Leonard,” Jittn’ah’a called as he swept into the room, his leathery skin gray with weariness. “Awake, finally?” Two security officers flanked the door outside and it locked behind him. _Good,_  Leonard thought. At least Jim was taking reasonable precautions. _If only I could get him in here—_

“And starving,” Leonard retorted, trying not to think. He looked down at his hands to see the right one in a bone knitter and the left wrapped with slightly blood soaked bandages. He didn’t want to know what happened. He didn’t. "What...?" he started to ask anyway.

“After some food,” Jitt said smoothly into the ensuing silence. "We've addressed the most serious electrolyte imbalances, but as you know, nothing is better than real food, is it?"

He went to the dispenser and plugged in his code. It was a testament to how out of it he felt that Leonard honestly hadn’t thought about the fact that he could have done the same. Of course, if they were smart, they'd disabled his security print.

A tray holding a bowl of soup materialized and Jitt brought it over, setting it on the table next to the bed. “Go slow. Looks like you haven’t been fed properly since you disappeared.”

“How long ago was that?” Leonard asked, voice cracking as he contemplated the meal. He was pretty sure he didn’t want to know that, either. How long did it take to convince a man to kill his—

“Two weeks ago,” Jitt replied. “You were recovered from a base on one of the moons of Hilotti Delta yesterday.”

Leonard ignored the information and dug into the simple meal with his awkward hands. His stomach wanted to reject the food after so long without, but he had to eat.

_Jim’s throat compressed in his hands. Just a little tighter now. A little longer and it will all be over._

The feeling of skin under his fingers overwhelmed him suddenly, and he dropped his spoon into the bowl with a clatter. _Damn it!_ He picked up the utensil again and threw it against the far wall, staring at it in disgust at his own outburst. Great, now he was throwing tantrums, too?

Jitt was quiet for a long time. The whiskers that framed his broad, flat mouth twitched the way they did when he was curious about something.

“How are you feeling?” he asked carefully.

Leonard snorted. “Well, clearly I’m screwed.” He abandoned the half-eaten soup and retreated to lean back against the wall, bringing his feet up onto the mattress. “And before you ask, no, I don’t remember anything.”

Jitt nodded. “Pretty sure that’s not true,” he said, his whiskers twitching again, this time in amusement. God damned empath.

Leonard tried to pretend he didn't still see Jim's face as it turned red, confusion and worry thick in his eyes. “Fine. I remember trying to choke the life out of Jim Kirk.” He glared at his colleague. “Are you happy now?”

“So you know you’ve been programmed,” Jitt replied, even-keeled. But he was obviously ready to stop Leonard if the question made him go nuts.

“I’m not an idiot,” Leonard barked back, annoyed by the utter unreality of the conversation.

“To kill Captain Kirk?”

Leonard clenched his hands into fists. Just hearing the words… “Yes.”

Jitt nodded. “We didn’t find any drugs in your system,” he offered. “No intracranial lesions of note. Any idea how?”

Leonard closed his eyes against the Nayalevan doctor’s pale pink gaze. _Intracranial lesions._ His limbs shook with something more than exhaustion. A pain, built from the inside, hovered, waiting for him to say too much.

"I got jumped on Hilotti Epsilon," he began slowly, feeling his way through the two weeks he didn't really remember. “I didn’t see them at first.”

“At first?” Jitt said, leaning forward.

Leonard fought against the pain. They could fix this. If he could just crack the code of what happened, they could fix this. “Until we got to—” He sucked in a breath as the memory of the room brought a stab of warning light in his brain. He balled his fists to feel the grating of broken bones in his right one, focusing on it instead of the light that hovered.

“Leonard?”

_Heat too close to his head. Too far inside it—_

Light and pain and somewhere else.

 

He was surprised not to wake up in the brig, though he remembered nothing beyond looking up into Jitt’s questioning gaze.

The ceiling was still the dull white of the isolation room, the sounds muted and distant. He felt even less steady, less real. Something had happened, obviously. There was a larger bone knitter on that right hand and his left hand felt raw and painful, his back bruised.

He wondered, again, how much sedation he’d had. How much damage he’d done. Jitt was right. Eventually, this knocking him out every time was going to kill him—he didn’t react well to sedatives at the best of times, thanks to his family history, and this was the worst of times by far. Of course, it would all be moot if he killed somebody, now wouldn’t it?

Leonard gingerly examined the thoughts in his brain because he couldn’t live like this and he couldn’t—

_No. Don’t think about…_

He couldn’t spend the rest of his life in an isolation ward, damn it. He’d just have to figure out what the hell had been done to him and how to fix it.

_Just kill him and it will all be over._

“No,” he whispered, desperately praying that the pain and the light wouldn’t take him for his refusal. He was obviously doing something during those times. Spock had said “repeated episodes of violence”, so God only knew how bad it was. He was a doctor—he knew all kinds of ways to injure a person quickly.

_Just kill him and it will all be over._

He closed his eyes against the ceiling.

_Just kill him and it will all be over._

“Shut up!” he growled, hands going to his head as the light threatened and warning shocks of pain raced across his nerve-endings. This was insane.

 _He could have told them the human mind was too elastic to do what they were trying to do._ Maybe they could break down the programming. Maybe... He would never—

Leonard rolled up to sit on the edge of the cot, setting off the alarm. Jitt would be in soon, no doubt, to try another go at deprogramming him. Without killing him, hopefully, he thought wryly, as the pain grew. Though he supposed that would take care of the problem. The monitor on the wall beeped an alert, and Leonard looked up to see his blood pressure rising.

“Well that’s just dandy,” he grumbled. Maybe the stress and the sedatives would give him a heart attack and save them all the trouble.

The door shushed open, but Leonard ignored it. He would try ignoring the pain in his arms and legs and head, but he couldn’t. And he couldn’t kill—

“Hey, Bones.”

Leonard whipped his head around to see Jim Kirk—complete and utter idiot that he was—standing there just inside the door. Unarmed. One eye was black and swollen, there was a raw scrape along his jaw, and the bruises on his neck stood out easily in the suddenly harsh light.

_Kill him and—_

“Jim, are you insane!?” he growled. “What the hell do you think you’re doing here?” He leaned forward, rocking now with the pain. The light was beginning to white out the rest of the room, but he could see his target clearly. _Target..._

“Bones,” Jim said, all compassion and steely determination and damn it, _why was he here!?_ "You can hold it together. I know you can. We just need to find out what happened, and—”

Leonard let out a horrible bark of the blackest humor. “What happened?” he croaked. The pain stabbed at him now that Jim was right there. Close enough to... “What happened was that—” he started gasping for breath as his chest tightened, but ground on regardless— “Those damn Gurralans— _God—_ they—” He rolled down, putting his head between his knees as everything seized up on him. No. _Nononono..._

“It’s okay, Bones” Jim whispered, sounding closer than he had been.

_Don’t touch—_

A hand dropped onto Leonard’s shoulder and he grabbed blindly for anything, coming up with something big enough and heavy enough, by the feel of it. He brought his head up hard, slamming into Jim’s jaw and throwing the younger man back a step.

The medical stand in his hand whirled fast in the air, and the impact of the foot of it against Jim’s chest was sickening. Jim’s eyes opened wide, his mouth working silently for a second before he fell to the floor.

Leonard couldn’t let go of the stand. He couldn’t take his eyes off the man lying before him, the tear in his shirt where the stand had sliced through, the blood that seemed to all but gush forth, showing that the blow had torn more than cloth.

His arms and legs cramped solid. He couldn’t believe how much more it hurt now! What the hell happened to _It will all be over?_

Or was him stroking out from the pain the way it ended?

Falling to the ground to curl fetal beside his friend, Leonard barely heard the door open or the medical staff rush in or the security officer demanding he let go of the weapon he couldn’t feel anymore. The calls for gurneys and hyposprays, the requests for him to answer—for Jim to answer—for _anything…_ It was all so much noise above a horrible sea of pain and anguish and _Jesus Christ!_

“Inform Commander Spock,” Jitt murmured to someone finally, the sad tone slicing through everything. His hand was suddenly on Leonard’s head to burn and hurt and cut just like that laser the Gurralans had used. “Captain Kirk is dead.”

No.

No, God!

_Kill him and it will all be over._

Leonard didn’t hear the sudden shouts for a resuscitation unit as the pain and light engulfed him for what he hoped was the final time.

********

He’d woken an hour ago and cursed the fact. And _still,_ he wasn’t in the brig. He wondered if there was some shred of human sentimentality buried in Spock's logical that didn't want to put him in a cell, even after he’d... Leonard’s head throbbed, his hands torn and aching. The blank white ceiling was better than the cold floor of that cell on the moon of Hilotti Delta, but he was still just as trapped.

At least the light and its pain weren’t threatening anymore. Why would they? The trigger had been pulled.

It had taken him a while to think it through, now he had time in a white room with no distractions besides the horror show in his head. Now that the memories themselves didn't threaten him with a fugue state.

The Gurralans had expected him to kill Jim and die right there in the cell, probably. Or be killed in the attempt. Or the aftermath. Luckily, he supposed dully, he’d been right here in medbay when his body tried to self-destruct.

All in all, it was a pretty shoddy plan. Human physiology was different from Gurralans—something they hadn’t taken into account when they started using their laser.

_“His mind takes the command, but it does not retain,” one of them had said, barely heard over the pain of their latest attempt to rewire him._

_“It will,” the leader had replied, as implacable and clueless as any other dictator. Leonard could have told him the human brain was too elastic to do what they were trying to do, unless they dug the micro-lesions into his brain again and again for days.... Or weeks._

_“Again, until it takes. We will rid ourselves of the Ship That Cannot Be Conquered, and no one will suspect us.”_

Which was probably the most ridiculous plan Leonard had ever heard.

“And yet, here I am,” he whispered to himself. He debated sitting up, but realized he didn’t want to set off the alarm and find out his fate just yet. He wondered how much brain damage he had now, though he felt brutally clear-headed and sharp. As barbaric as it was, the laser must have been incredibly precise. They might not even have seen the lesions on a normal scan, but he could hazard a guess as to where the Gurralans had targeted; narrow the focus of a high definition scan.

_The medical stand whirled hard in the air—_

A good defense against cold-blooded murder, he supposed. If he had plans to mount any defense at all.

_Jim’s eyes opened wide, his mouth working silently for a second before he fell to the floor._

“God damn it.” The need to be distracted from the memory outweighed his need to be alone, and Leonard fumbled his way to sitting, his body shaking hard, though he couldn’t decide if they were tremors from the brain damage or just the agony of what was going on.

He heard the safety alarm go off and put his head in his hands as he waited for someone to come and tell him what he already knew. He’d killed Jim Kirk. He’d killed the best friend he had and he’d probably rot in jail for it. Or worse, they’d decide he wasn’t really at fault—alien influence, brainwashing, bad luck and a poor choice of coffee shop…

“Dr. McCoy?”

Spock’s voice was cool and efficient, but there was a bizarre edge of concern that made Leonard’s blood boil to hear. He of all people sure as hell didn’t deserve Spock’s questionable compassion.

“Why am I not in the brig?” he asked in monotone, refusing to look up.

“You are unwell,” Spock explained, like Leonard was a child. “And I am unaware of any crime you have committed.”

That _did_ get Leonard’s attention, and he jerked to his feet to glare at the green-blooded ass. “Spock, you can’t possibly believe—”

“What I believe, Doctor,” Spock cut in sharply, “is that an offense of potentially criminal proportions _has been_ committed.” His eyes softened in a way no Vulcan’s should. “But not by you.”

Jitt stepped into the room and Leonard groaned quietly. The leathery skin on one cheek had been split, the bluish gray that was his normal tone darkened to almost midnight by the bruising that had overtaken that entire side of his face.

_I did that._

“Leonard,” Jitt said, sounding absurdly sheepish, given that he was the one who'd been beaten up. “I didn’t see any other way to break the programming. I’m sorry. I would never…”

Leonard shook his head, confused and aching and ready for the other God damned shoe to drop. “What the hell are you saying?” he asked. Jitt hadn’t sent Jim in there, had he?

“He’s saying I’m not dead.”

Leonard jerked his gaze toward the door and stopped breathing, even though it was clear that Jim Kirk _hadn’t_.

"Sorry, Spock," Jim said in response to the Vulcan's irritated lip purse. "I'm more the direct approach kind of guy."

Spock smoothed his features, a sure sign he was fighting to keep from sighing. "Of that, I am aware, Captain."

It was all so damn normal, Leonard dropped back to sit on the edge of the bed again in confusion.

Jim stood quiet and careful in the doorway, his shirt gone, a thick regen wrap covering his chest where.... His face and neck were still bruised, his left arm held gingerly across his body. But he was alive.

And Leonard didn’t have any more desire to kill him than he usually did when the idiot pulled another of his stunts. He shifted his gaze back to Jitt. “What the hell…?”

Jitt’s skin went slightly bluer as the blood rushed to his blushing cheeks. “The fugue states were brought on by you questioning your orders," he explained. "Each one affected your cardiovascular and adrenal systems more severely, and the sedatives were exacerbating the problem. It was clear that the programming would continue to eat at you until you either killed Captain Kirk or yourself, by pushing too hard to break it.”

Leonard looked over at Jim doubtfully. Because there was every possibility that the programming _wasn’t_ broken, wasn’t there? He didn’t feel the need to kill Jim _now,_ but that could always change. It could be temporary.

“We knew you’d have to attack if you were given a clear chance,” Jim said quietly, continuing the explanation and staying comfortingly far away. He grinned the schoolboy grin that he had down pat and his arm tightened around his chest a little. “I didn’t think you’d try to take me out with an IV pole, though.”

_The medical stand whirled hard in the air, and the impact of it against Jim’s chest was sickening. Jim’s eyes opened wide, his mouth working silently for a second before he fell to the floor._

Leonard caught his breath, but the light and pain didn’t come. He just felt wrung out and hungover and so damn glad to see Jim living and breathing.

“His injury looked serious,” Jitt said quietly. “Almost as soon as you did it, your system started reacting the way it had in previous attempts—perhaps worse, as it looked like maybe you'd actually...." His whiskers drooped. "I saw an opportunity and... nudged your perception along."

Nudged. "You made me think I killed him." But now that he knew he hadn't... He looked up at Jim, watched him for a long moment and saw that damn fool trust he always seemed to have there.

“Thank you,” he whispered to Jitt, seeing the alien take a deep breath out of the corner of his eye, though his gaze still held on Jim.

“While the end goal was laudable, Dr. Jittn’ah’a’s actions were in clear violation of the Telepathic Intrusion Provision,” Spock droned seriously. Every telepathic species had a chip on its shoulder—even Vulcans. “If you wish to press charges—”

“I _said_ ‘Thank you,’” Leonard repeated staunchly, meeting the Nayalevan’s eyes for just a second. He put his right hand, still in its bone knitter, to his forehead and closed his eyes. “Jitt, can you get something for this damn headache?”

There was a moment of silence, and Jitt’s voice was lighter when he answered. “Yeah. Let me see what I can do.”

“Probably have permanent brain damage now,” Leonard groused.

“Dr. McCoy,” Spock began. “Telepathic manipulation is a serious offense, and while I may commend Dr. Jittn’ah’a’s motives—”

“Spock?” Jim said, with that thread of exasperated fondness silencing his second-in-command effectively. “Just get out.”

Leonard still didn’t look up—not because of his headache, but because he’d honestly figured a scene like this would never play out again and he wasn't sure he could keep from losing it if he watched.

“Of course,” Spock said after a long moment. The displeasure in his voice mixed with relief. The first disappeared as the second intensified. "Doctor, I am gratified that you are recovering."

"Well thanks, Spock," Leonard muttered, trying to dredge up a shade of their usual byplay. "I'm touched."

"Captain." The disapproval was back, bringing a smile to Leonard's face—though damned if he knew where it came from.

The door swished closed and silence reigned supreme for several long minutes.

“I need a new shirt,” Jim said finally, his tone light.

“Again?” Leonard sputtered. A dam broke and he didn’t try to hold back the few tears that leaked out as he chuckled involuntarily. He looked up, finally, and saw Jim waiting for him. Shaky legs held him up as he walked over and gave a dead man a hug.

“God, I’m glad to see you,” he whispered.

“Yeah, well,” Jim said, passing it off with an embrace as shaky as Leonard's own. “I figure you’ve been threatening to kill me for years. It was about time you got your wish.”

Leonard tensed and withdrew, but Jim held onto his shoulders. “Programming’s gone, Bones,” he said quietly. “I promise.”

“Are you an expert in cerebral micro-lesions now?” Leonard asked unsteadily, fighting for normal.

“I _know_ a guy,” Jim allowed. “Well, I know a guy who knows a guy.” He waited until Leonard snorted out a laugh and then got deadly serious. “I trust you, Bones.”

Leonard stepped back and Jim let him go. His shoulders were cold where Jim’s hands had been, but even that was okay. “Now you’re just getting maudlin.”

“Me?” Jim protested, nodding to Jitt as the doctor walked back in with a hypospray. “Come on, I don’t know the meaning of the word.”

“Which says more than I want to contemplate about your education,” Leonard put in, feeling the painkillers take immediate effect. He’d get with Dr. Yao in a little bit and see how much of his brain he’d lost to this little adventure. And he’d suffer through the nightmares he knew he’d have waiting for him.

But for now, he clapped his hands together and cast off the darkness like he always did. Hell was coming for everyone—at any time—but it didn’t mean you had to wallow when things were good, right?

“I’m starving,” he said, maybe a little too brightly.

Jim rolled his eyes. Alive. Still not dead this time. Leonard knew, in the pit of his stomach, that he’d be dead _sometime_. But not today.

“Well, I know Doc Jitt won’t let you out yet,” Jim told him. “And I’m pretty sure they revoked your computer access.” He strolled over to the food dispenser and pretended to browse. “So I guess you’ll just have to eat whatever I come up with.”

“Great,” Leonard grumbled good-naturedly, though he was sure he wouldn’t have had the energy to make it to the mess hall even if he _was_ released. “You know I hate your cooking.”

“Hey!” Jim said, dialing up something and looking back at him in indignation. “My cooking is _not_ that bad.” Jim winced in pain at the twisting and Leonard blanked for a long second.

_I did that._

The beep and whine of the food’s arrival barely made a dent in Leonard’s frozen guilt, but Jim’s warm living hand on his shoulder shook him out of it.

“Bones?” Jim asked, concerned. He must have seen something in Leonard’s eyes that begged for normal, because his voice went fratboy and whiny. “Come on, seriously—my cooking is not that bad!”

Leonard didn’t fight the smile as his best friend placed a tray of something that was sort of soup in front of him and defended himself as badly as possible. Just to give him something to gripe about.

Because hell, wasn’t that what best friends were for?

******  
the end


End file.
